A huge disappointment and a bit of a fright

Kenya 2007

This is a tale of both a huge disappointment and a bit of a fright.  It happened in 2007 when I was on my fourth holiday, visiting Kenya and achieving that dream of seeing some of Africa’s wildlife that I’d had since I was a little girl and I’d first started watching natural history programmes in black and white on our tiny TV screen.  This time I was travelling with a well-known over-50s travel company.  I have been on many of their holidays but this was the only time I have been on one of their solo holidays.  I should stress that the definition of a “solo” holiday is quite different from that of a “singles” holiday and you shouldn’t make any assumptions based on that word. Anyway, the two men, for some reason, mostly kept very much to themselves except when forced to mingle with 12 women at mealtimes and on safaris.

The first part of the holiday was already over.  We had spent a couple of days in Nairobi, where we visited the house of Karen Blixen, she of “Out of Africa” fame, and I had been kissed on the hand by the long, soft, purple tongue of a giraffe in a nearby sanctuary.  We had travelled on to Voi on the edge of Tsavo East national park, which is famous for rehabilitating and releasing the orphan elephants from the David Sheldrick orphanage.  We had had many adventures on our twice-daily safaris. We had seen a variety of animals from the tiny dik-dik to the mighty giraffe and four of the “Big 5”, lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo. We had even spent half an hour staring into the distance at a large rock, which our driver was convinced was a lion which would “get up and move at any moment”!  We had also visited Tsavo West national park, where we caught a tantalising sight of Mt Kilimanjaro, with its snow-capped peaks just sticking up out of the clouds and we drove through an enormous rhino sanctuary, without seeing a single rhino (which was lucky as I was asleep most of the time).  The local guides provided chalk and talks and even walks and talks and in the evenings we enjoyed our cocktails on a bridge with a herd of elephants wandering below us.

At the end of ten days, eight of the company left for home and the remaining six of us set off on a hair-raising seven hour drive, heading for the coast, weaving around potholes like volcano craters.  We would then suddenly hit a few miles of good surfaces in an area where, I think, China’s influence was starting to be felt. Eventually we boarded a ferry which took us across to the Island of Mombasa and we drove on to our resort.  This place was more conducive to holiday hanging around, enjoying the excellent food and drink, swimming and avoiding being pounced on by the traders as we checked out the beach.  Whatever we had done in the day, I would meet up with five other ladies in the evening, for dinner and entertainment, such as a display of dancing by Masai warriors and, on one occasion a talk about snakes which involved one climbing up my arm!

On our second evening, I had gone to bed and fallen asleep, only to be woken around 1am by the sound of fireworks.  I checked the time, fought my way out of the mosquito net, jumped out of bed, muttering something about people who thought it was alright to set off fireworks in the middle of the night (or the language might have been something stronger) and hurried to the window. It only took a few seconds to realise that there were no fireworks but that the building opposite mine, which was another block of bedrooms, had huge flames leaping from its thatched roof! I threw on my dressing gown and rushed out of my room banging on the doors of the adjacent rooms, where my friends were sleeping. 

“Wake up! Wake up! Come on! There’s a fire and we need to get out!”

They emerged one by one, sleepy and shocked.  When we were all standing outside, we agreed to put some clothes on and meet again outside our rooms, which luckily were on the ground floor.  We managed to do that pretty quickly and we were all about to leave when we realised that amongst all the noise and milling about, most people leaving our block had taken the time to pack their suitcases first! So, although the fire was spreading across the rooftops towards the main hotel building, from where it would possibly move on to our block, we agreed to go back into our rooms to do the same.  I have never done such a quick pack of all my favourite items and essentials.  We joined the other guests, gathering on a grassy area in front of but well away from the main building, down towards the beach.  I phoned our tour manager, who we had only met the previous morning and who was very surprised to hear from me in the middle of the night.  “The hotel is on fire”, I said, trying to sound calm.  At first, I don’t think he quite grasped what I was saying but, as soon as he did, to his credit, he got straight in his car and drove for over an hour to check on us. (I hope he learned never ever to give out his personal phone number to guests). We really couldn’t see what was going on as far as firefighting was concerned but eventually the flames began to die down and it appeared that the fire had been confined to the thatched roofs of that one block and to some of the staff accommodation. Meanwhile, some of the staff were passing among us, serving cups of tea and the manager was reassuring us that we were quite safe – and so we were!!! Of course that didn’t stop some of the guests shouting at the hotel manager and each other, rather than sitting back and appreciating the tea and biscuits as most of the rest of us did. At last, as the block where our rooms were situated  was undamaged, we were eventually allowed to go back to bed and, back to sleep. The guests from the smoke-damaged rooms were taken to other hotels.

When I got up, breakfast was in full swing in the dining room as if nothing had happened. Afterwards, we sat down and discussed with the tour manager whether we should stay at the resort or move elsewhere.  Our own rooms were not touched, the pool was being cleaned and was available later that morning and, as people headed off in droves, it looked as if the hotel needed as much support as it could get, so five out of the six of us decided to stay put.

A couple of days later, we had a day out to visit Mombasa. The contours of the coast mean that the easiest way to travel into the city was to get on the ferry again. We first visited Fort Jesus, built in the 16th century by the Portuguese and, apparently the first successful attempt by a Western power to establish influence over the Indian Ocean trade. The fort is considered a masterpiece of late renaissance military fortification.  However, as Fort Jesus was captured and recaptured at least nine times between 1631, when the Portuguese lost it to the Sultan of Mombasa, and 1895, when it fell under British rule, this claim might be subject to some question.  The British converted the fort into a prison but later declared it a national monument and, in 2011 it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From there we hit the centre of Mombasa to do the usual tourist things and buy overpriced items that we were never going to use at a local market, when we all succumbed to the patter of the owner of a spice stall.  I also purchased two oil pastel paintings from an artist who I saw working inside the market.

I was so excited about the next stop that I hadn’t really stopped to think it through.  We drove along Moi Avenue to see the famous elephant tusks which were installed to mark Princess Margaret’s visit in 1952.

We got down from our coach and walked up to get a close look at the two tusks arching across the road.  Well, to say I was disappointed was a huge understatement! The tusks were made from aluminium plates fastened together by bolts! Had I really been expecting the real thing?  You might well laugh and I deserve it because I consider myself an intelligent person but I had not for a single moment considered that expecting to see real tusks of this size was, well ridiculous! 

• Moi Avenue and “those” tusks

My spirits were restored by our final visit of the day to a craft co-operative, where we could see artisans working and where their goods were then sold for a fair price in the showroom, with profits then returned to the them. Sadly, or maybe fortunately, I had no room left to carry anything more.

And, with that, our time in Kenya drifted slowly to a close. I made it home with my paintings and a collection of gorgeous painted wooden birds, all of which still have a home with me.

Soon after I arrived home, I was watching my local TV station and saw a family talking about the “dreadful fire we experienced on our holiday in Kenya”. They said that we had all been placed in tremendous danger, while the hotel staff did little or nothing to help us. The events they described were far from what I remembered but, try as I might, when I phoned the TV station to tell them about the fire from my perspective, no-one was interested.  I shouldn’t have been surprised because, at the hotel, we had all overheard people saying that they were going to exaggerate and even lie about what had happened in order to get some compensation out of the hotel or their holiday company. In truth, the only people who suffered were the hotel employees, several of whom were laid off because there was not enough work for them with the hotel only half full.  It left a bad taste in my mouth!

The five of us who had stayed on agreed that we would send very positive feedback about our holiday in general and about our experience at the resort in Mombasa, especially our kind and dedicated tour manager. I asked, if possible, that there should be some compensation for the staff who lost their jobs. I was delighted to receive a lovely bunch of flowers from them by way of thanks.